TO JOIN RED ARMY

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 56, 30 November 1926, Page 9

TO JOIN RED ARMY

SOVIET’S INDUCEMENTS TO BRITISH OFFICERS BIG SALARIES OFFERED TO MILITARY EXPERTS CHEMICAL WARFARE IN HANDS OF GERMANS According to the London “Dispatch,” the Soviet is sec> retly offering big salaries to British ex-officers, principally gunnery, aviation’, and gas experts, to join the Red Army’s Headquarters at Moscow. BY TELEGRAPH. — PRESS ASSOCIATION Copyright - London, November 28. The “Dispatch” states:—“The Soviet is secretly offering salaries from £lOOO to £l5OO yearly, and other inducements, to unemployed and discontented British ex-officers,' principally gunnery, aviation, and gas experts, to join the Red Army’s headquarters at Moscow, where there is a kind of foreign legion based on a recruiting campaign conducted quite apart from the activities of the Soviet missions abroad.

“It is, doubtless, the outcome of a decree signed by Trotsky’s deputy, Skilianskv, ordering agents to encourage the enlistment of foreign nationals bv every means in their power. The result has been whispered approaches to ex-officers in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair, hotels, Chelsea coffee houses, ami Soho.” An ex-regular officer informed the “Dispatch”A Soviet agent, aware that I had been an outspoken critic of the War Office, and also the author of a confidential memorandum on gunnery instruction, intimated that I would be paid a substantial amount in Paris, where a contract could be signed for the purpose of evading the Foreign Enlistment Act. two essentials were that 1 spoke French and was not married.” The “Dispatch” learns that 100 Englishmen are serving in Russia, but the pay does not exceed £4OO yearly. Thev are liable to all kinds of unpleasantness if they return to Britain. One of the Soviet’s most prominent air experts is an Englishman The Soviet is using principally British arid Italian aircraft, but the chemical warfare is chiefly in the hands of Germans. The Soviet badly needs staff officers, the Tsarist school having been almost entirely wiped out.

SOVIET AMBASSADORS DISPERSING STALIN’S OPPONENTS Riga, November 28. * A report that Trotsky will succeed tile late M. Krassin as Soviet representative in London is believed ,to be based on a plan to. disperse Stalin s opponents. The plan includes Kameneff becoming Ambassador at Rome, Lachevitch going to China, and Zmovieff to Poland or Lithuania.